theological belief,
but by seeming to ignore the great central problem of Christian
politics. If I had to put my own doubts, instead of the average
liberal's, I should state the case in other words, but not
altogether differently.(218)

Chapter II. The Alternative Policy In Act. (1886-1888)

Those who come over hither to us from England, and some weak
people among ourselves, whenever in discourse we make mention of
liberty and property, shake their heads, and tell us that "Ireland
is a depending kingdom," as if they would seem by this phrase to
intend, that the people of Ireland are in some state of slavery or
dependence different from those of England.--JONATHAN SWIFT.

I

In the ministry that succeeded Mr. Gladstone in 1886, Sir Michael Hicks
Beach undertook for the second time the office of Irish secretary, while
Lord Randolph Churchill filled his place at the exchequer and as leader of
the House. The new Irish policy was to open with the despatch of a
distinguished soldier to put down moonlighters in Kerry; the creation of
one royal commission under Lord Cowper, to inquire into land rents and
land purchase; and another to inquire into the country's material
resources. The two commissions were well-established ways of marking time.
As for Irish industries and Irish resources, a committee of the House of
Commons had made a report in a blue book of a thousand pages only a year
before. On Irish land there had been a grand commission in 1880, and a
committee of the House of Lords in 1882-3. The latest Purchase Act was
hardly yet a year old. Then to commission a general to hunt down little
handfuls of peasants who with blackened faces and rude firearms crept
stealthily in the dead of night round lonely cabins in the remote
hillsides and glens of Kerry, was hardly more sensible than it would be to
send a squadron of life-guards to catch pickpockets in a London slum.

A question that exercised Mr. Gladstone at least as sharply as the
proceedings of ministers, was the attitude (M129) to be taken by those who
had quitted him, ejected him in the short parliament of 1886, and fought
the election against him. We have seen how much controversy arose long
years before as to the question whereabouts in the House of Commons the
Peelites should take their seats.(219) The same perplexity now confronted
the liberals who did not agree with Mr. Gladstone upon Irish government.
Lo